Prototype Evolution

As far as any radical change goes, my group's project has followed a fairly direct path.  What we have had to do to improve our prototype has not been to make any great changes, but rather to specify the details that will define the overarching theme of the project; we are going to try the project on a small scale in the test run next week, and we are hoping that this will give us insights into whether or not the project should be done with a lot of testing with a small group or with quick testing on a larger group of participants.  We have also decided that participants will be painting on roll paper using acrylic paints and that there will be a member of our group who will be there to hand the participant brushes with specified colors.  The participants will be blindfolded, and as of now each will be listening to music on sound-canceling headphones.  We will be trying out different kinds of music in the test run, which will hopefully clarify many elements of the process involved in our project.  However, the project requires very little in terms of setup and budget and therefore does not have too many precariously moving parts.

Failure & Revision

Failure is a device by which we can always learn something new.  When we fail, we are able to identify successful and unsuccessful elements of a project or process.  This allows us to edit our process so that it is more likely successful in the future.  Revision goes hand in hand with failure, as revision allows us to consider the unsuccessful elements of a project and edit, fix, or simply delete them.  The difficulty with this this process is actually identifying what needs to be changed and choosing carefully the way in which it needs to be changed.  However, failure and revision are always learning experiences, no matter whether or not the end result is any better than the original, as the process allows us to learn more about our own methods of working and our own creative processes.

Fixation

The readings compelled me to think about the value systems that we construct while going through  a creative process; because the goal of a creative process is to build value from information, the systems of value involved are integral to the process.  Really, however, value is defined and created by humans and does not exist outside of the context of a consciousness that can apply value.  Equipped with this ideal, we can abandon standards of value that may or may not cause fixation, and therefore create fresh and unprejudiced value and prevent the narrowing of value created by fixation and pure vertical thinking.
An iterative proces is also a good way of holding onto past thoughts while continuing to refine the product of the creative process, and it allows for a comparison of value systems in iterations such that you may yourself narrow and pick a choice from the options.

Ann Arbor Map, Revised

SketchUp Architecture

Collage Portrait; A Dimly Lit Path

Pendulum, an audio/visual experience by Practice